


Super Max

by orphan_account



Category: Formula 1 RPF
Genre: (sort of), But maybe not, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Pining, Singapore Grand Prix 2019, Streaming, Super Max (The Song by the pitstop boys), Twitch - Freeform, one-sided
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-19
Updated: 2019-09-21
Packaged: 2020-10-24 09:56:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20704079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: When Lando plays the Super Max song during on of his streams and starts to sing along Max gets...flustered





	1. Chapter 1

Max wasn’t attracted to Lando. At least that was what he’d tried to convince himself of for months. He had always had a bit of a crush on Lando, but when they were in their carting days he always thought it was solely because he thought Lando was cool. In recent years though, especially since Lando had joined him in Formula 1, that small crush had developed into a full blown, head-over-heels thing. It was not like he had religiously stalked Lando’s instagram or anything, but maybe he had checked his story a little more than was usual to see if Lando had posted anything new. Them being in the same Formula also meant that Lando was around a lot more, which meant he was constantly searching the paddock for the other’s messy mop of hair. Just catching a glimpse of him, even if Lando never seemed to notice him, brought a smile to his lips. If he saw Lando in the media paddock he would carefully attempt to reposition himself to be next to him, and if they just so happened to bump shoulders while walking on a crowded grid, clearly the crowds were to blame and not Max’s clever maneuvering to get them side by side. While he tried to deny that he harbored feelings for the McLaren driver it was fruitless, and it had quickly become a bit of a problem. His dad had once caught him staring, and he was forced to assure him that it was just a female fan passing by that he had been ogling.

He didn’t think anyone else had noticed, but he realized he should probably be more conscious about it. If his team, or worse, another team, caught him staring they might think he was trying to steal ideas, which could get him in a whole lot more trouble then his stupid crush. So he had done his very best to distance himself, like he had with everyone else he knew: his team, his teammates, even his friends. He knew from experience that it was easier to not get attached at all than it was to have to break ties after he had somehow screwed it up. So he started keeping his distance during the driver parades and the interviews and the national anthems. And through the entire thing Lando didn’t seem to bat an eye. There was some sting to it, after all they had karted and sim raced for years. There were plenty of times during the final legs of their 24 hour sim races when his brain was laced with sleep and too many Red Bulls he got dangerously close to saying dangerous words, but he always seemed to catch himself just in time. 

It was fine, he convinced himself. Their distance was good. They couldn’t be friends when they were supposed to be rivals. If his stupid crush got in the way of his racing then he would be throwing away his career, his dream, for something utterly onesided. So they raced, did press conferences together, didn’t talk, and no one noticed anything different. Just further proof that nothing had ever been there. He could ignore Lando and Lando could act the same way he always had, and Max would just have to deal with it. 

On Tuesday shortly after the Belgium GP a text from Lando popped up on his phone “I’m streaming...want to join?” This wasn’t a surprise, after all they had streamed together before and did so with varying regularity, but Max was still hesitant. He was trying to keep his distance from Lando and surely racing together didn’t count as keeping his distance, but he worried that saying no would raise suspicions, so he shot back a quick “sure. give me five minutes”  
He turned on the sim (and double checked his pedals) before texting Lando again “alright, my mic’s on, I’m good to go.” Most of the time they were racing Lando was talking about a previous F1 race or interacting with his follwers, but at some point the conversation seemed to steer more towards him and he wasn’t sure if he liked it. But he could manage this, he could...no, he would have a normal conversation. He did it all the time. Media was a part of his job, so if he just pretended that this was an interview, he could get through it. So he responded to Lando’s banter and cracked a few jokes of his own, all the while carefully walking to thin line of being open enough where anyone watching could think they were close-ish friends, but not to the point where he would accidently let anything slip.

About halfway through the stream Lando brought up a song he had heard on YouTube called “Super Max” made by some Dutch super fans. Despite Max’s groaning, Lando played it, and, to Max’s growing horror, sang along...or at least attempted his best despite not speaking a word of Dutch. There was one particular line, at the begining of a verse that went “yo-fucking-ho” and Lando practically screamed it. Every. Fucking. Time. He was actually singing "you're fucking whole" instead of the iconic phrase, but it was too cute for Max to want to correct him. He was incredibly off tune, but without fail every time the line came up his voice easily drowned out the actually song. He wasn’t sure if it was the fact that Lando was singing or whether it was the actual words that Lando was singing, but something about it made him blush. Almost immediately after hearing it the first time he felt his cheeks grow red, and was relieved that people could only hear his voice on the stream. Despite this he was worried that if he talked people would hear the shakiness in his voice, so he kept his mouth closed until the song ended. 

It took a bit for him to return to his previous level of banter, but he got there, and foolishly he thought the storm had passed. During one of the times when Lando was replaying the song while they were racing Lando made a joke about how most of 113k views were probably him, which got Max thinking. Lando had seen it enough to point out when one of the guys singing didn’t know the lyrics, he was able to hum it completely through (it was catchy, but still), and he was able to time his bad singing perfectly with the recording. How many times had he actually listened to it and why did he seem to like it so much?

When they finally ended the stream Max again thought he had escaped the worst of it. He was wrong. The stream hadn’t been over for a minute when a text made his phone buzz. 

“So did you like it?”

Another text buzzed in a few seconds later.

“The song I mean”

How was he supposed to respond to that? He was trying to distance himself, not get closer to the Brit, but he also didn’t want to seem rude by not responding. He didn’t want to be the person that typed and deleted, endlessly teasing the recipient of the message with the ever elusive ellipses. Besides, how did he formulate what he thought of it? He’d liked the song to an extent, but the best part of it was easily Lando’s bad singing, and there was no way he was going to say that while still being sober. 

So carefully typed out, “it was good, always good to see excited fans”

Almost instantaneously a text appeared in response, “aw come on man you sound so stiff. what’s up?”

Again Lando had placed him in an impossible scenario. He can’t respond with the truth, it’s too risky, but if he keeps lying Lando will just keep calling him on his bullshit. 

“Just tired, double headers wear me out.”

Then before he could regret sending a double text: “How’d you find that video anyway?”

“The song?”

“Ya”

“Uhhhhhhhh”

This time Max waited for Lando to double text. In his mind there is no correct way to respond to an ‘uh’ with eight hs. 

“This is embarrassing……..”

Max found that an ellipsis with eight dots was also too daunting, so he waited. While he waited through what seemed like an eternity he pondered whether you could truly call it an ellipsis if it had more than the three customary dots. After a quick google search he discovered that it is indeed an ellipsis if it has three or four periods, but more than that it could no longer be classified as an ellipsis. Max was jerked back into reality when his phone buzzed again.

“I found it on a subreddit?”

As much as Max would have liked to keep on waiting forever, they had reached they place where he probably shouldn’t. 

“That doesn’t really surprise me...also doesn’t seem super embarrassing”

Max let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding in. He thought it would be something weird, something that would make him say something that he would regret after he had had some sleep and time to think about it. 

“But it was a subreddit dedicated to you...”

As Max reads Lando’s text he sucked back in the breath he had just let out.

“Oh” 

“In my defense...” 

Max waits for the next text, but it doesn’t come. He sees those three dots appear and disappear and he feels the emotional limbo he was so desperately trying to avoid causing earlier. Finally he gets a response, but it is in no way the one he was looking for.

“Can I call you?”

Max wants to say no. He wants to power off his phone, throw it out a window, and hide under his blankets forever. 

But he can’t, so instead he types out “sure.”

It takes less than five seconds for his phone to ring and Max is truly impressed at the speed of which Lando can dial; it makes him wonder if Lando's thumb had just been hovering over the call button. His shaking hands illustrate that he’s terrified of picking up, but he somehow manages to swipe the answer call button across the screen.

“Hey.” He hears Lando’s on the other end, his voice as shaky as Max’s hands were a few seconds ago. This is new for him. Usually he seems so confident. He has all of his fans wrapped around his little finger holding onto his every word. Even in the paddock, despite being a rookie, he has everyone under his spell. He’s always one shy smile away from a viral tweet. He wields every social media platform like a blade he’s been training with since the day he was born. The internet is his domain, but right now with only a pair of phones and 900 miles separating them he sounds vulnerable, scared even. 

“Hey” Max responds, when he is met with silence he continues “so...the subreddit.”

“Ya. About that.” A deafening pause fills the space between them. 

Then, so quietly Max almost misses it he hears Lando whisper “I missed you.”

“You...missed me?”

“Ya, we used to talk and stuff. We would play on iRacing outside of just my streams, and spend time together in the paddock and it was...it was nice. You would stand next to me in the media pen, which made everything a little less scary, and god knows I could use the help.” 

Lando's pace increased with every word and now he seemed to echo a speeding train with broken brakes approaching a sharp bend in the tracks. 

“And whenever I couldn’t find another driver to talk to or I felt awkward or everything was just getting to be a little too much you were there. You’ve always been there and it was nice. You kept me grounded. You kept me sane. I’m the youngest in the paddock and I get a lot of shit for that and people pretend like they’re joking, but I know they’re not.”  
Max wanted to say something. He wanted to stop the train of Lando's words before it ran off the tracks, but he couldn’t.

“And you were the only person who didn’t make me feel shitty, and then you got distant and it hurts. It fucking hurts because you know what?”

He was almost screaming now, and Max can hear the train's brakes squealing, but they aren’t doing anything to slow the train down and it’s going to hit the curve..

“I knew this would happen. This always happens, whenever I like someone-”

And there’s the bend.

“What?” Max asks. He knew this would happen; he expected a trainwreck, not this trainwreck, but still. He should have stopped this whole thing before the flames could engulf both of them, leaving them forever enemies in and out of the car. 

He expects Lando to yell, but instead it comes out in a sob “I like you, you fucking idiot!”

“Oh.” 

“Ya…”

It takes Max a second to muster up the courage, but he does.

“I like you too," but it is already too late; Lando has already hung up.

If this had happened a month ago, or even yesterday, Max would have ignored it. Called it fate and moved on, but it isn’t it isn't yesterday, and Lando fucking Norris had just told him he liked him, so does the only thing he can think of because he is too cowardly to call back, he texts. 

“What I was going to say before you so rudely hang up was that I like you too...” 

Max sat in his bed starring at his phone for what felt like hours. He kept expecting another text, maybe a "do you want to go get lunch with me?" or a "do you want to race together again?" at this point he would even take an "oh" but nothing came. Several times he tried to type out an adequate follow up text, but every draft he came up with he ended up deleting as it seemed far to needy. He could feel adrenaline pulsing in his veins, but there wasn't anything he could do about it. Usually when this happened the interaction was in person, so he could solve the awkward tension with a hasty kiss, but the distance between him and Lando made that impossible. So instead he settled for trying to get some sleep, promising himself that he would sort out this situation in the morning. 


	2. Chapter 2

As it happened he didn't figure it out the next morning, or the morning after that. The Italian GP came sooner than Max would have liked, and Lando still hadn’t responded. He had been too cowardly to send a second one, so the fog of emotion had remained between them. Monza had meant seeing each other in person, but when they did catch glimpses of the other they both refused to acknowledge what had transpired earlier in the week. Max pretended like it didn’t sting even though he felt it in his heart every time they passed in the paddock. When he arrived home from Monza exhausted and disappointed with his results, he thought about asking Lando if he wanted to do another stream together, but ultimately decided against it. His mind wrestled with the idea that Lando didn’t actually like him, and instead was just trying to get in his head, but the more he thought about it the more it saddened him, so he did his best to push the thought from his mind. 

The two weeks between Monza and Singapore crawled by, and Max found himself actually looking forward to the upcoming race. Yes, the awkwardness between them would be terrible, but at least he would actually get to see Lando, and maybe this time he would work up the courage to say something. Even if talking to Lando didn’t go well, or even happen at all, the RB15 excelled at corners and the team was projected to do well in this race. Unlike in Monza, he got to start where he qualified, so the odds were in his favor for having a good race.

The weekend approached and before he knew it the free practices had flown by, so only qualifying stood between him and the race. He was on his way to the Red Bull garage when he saw Lando talking to an engineer just outside the McLaren motorhome. He found himself staring as a million scenarios played through his head: should he try to talk to Lando alone, should he invite him over to play fifa in his hotel room after the race, and most importantly should he bring up the phone call or not. Whenever he had daydreamed about this it always ends with him making out with Lando behind the motorhomes, but the reasonable part of his brain knew how unlikely that would be. He is snapped back into reality when he feels someone poke at his shoulder.

“You alright mate? You’ve been staring at him for a while.” 

He turns around to see Daniel’s shit eating grin, and while he is usually happy to see his friend now is not that time. 

“It’s not like that. I just wanted to ask him a question.”

“Sure you did, but you might want to pay more attention to the time…lover boy.”

Max eyes flickered down to his watch. 

“Shit.”

“That’s what I thought,” he smirked “It’s best not to make Horner mad, you know.”

“Ya, I know.” He says with an eye roll. Max loved Daniel, but he didn’t always enjoy the chatizing that came along with being nine years younger than his former teammate. 

He waved goodbye to his friend as he hurried off toward his car, but not without first shooting a long glance in Lando’s direction. Unfortunately for Max, Lando was still too engrossed in his conversation to notice. 

Qualifying flew by, and before he realized it he was stepping out of the car exhausted and drenched in sweat. He knew that his father would be disappointed in his P4 result because Singapore was supposed to be his track to win, so he hurried to the media pen where he could at least delay their inevitable fight. 

His interviews were going fine when he saw, or rather heard, Lando enter the media pen. At first he heard a sniffling behind him and when he turned around he saw Lando’s small frame shaking slightly. Max watched as Lando attempted to smile but ended up failing miserably. All he wanted to do was scoop up the McLaren driver and take him far away from all press who wouldn’t stop asking him about where he went wrong. He had been in that situation before and knew how brutal it could be especially when people stop probing you about it. He remembered Lando talking about how much Bahrain had sucked, but at least there he had gotten to go home after his retirement, here this was not the case. Thankfully it seemed like the reporters took pity on Lando, and he was out of the media pen and deep into the paddock long before Max had even realized he was gone. 

Max’s heart screamed at him to go search for Lando, but he knew Christian and his father would be more than upset if he skipped their post qualifying briefing, so instead he sulked toward the Red Bull motorhome, and prepared himself to face his father. Christian and the team weren’t upset at him; instead they just asked a lot of questions about where he could improve for the race the following day, but facing his father was a whole different story. He wished that the insults no longer stung, but he begrudgingly accepted his father’s words knowing that if he didn't it would make the whole process longer. It hurt him to know that his father thought he was a disappointment, but consoled himself with the fact that Jos’ latest rant would soon be over and he could go search for Lando. 

The minute the yelling stopped he sprinted from the garage, not caring for a second if his mechanics thought he was a coward. His first thought was that Lando might be in the McLaren motorhome, but there was no way he would be allowed inside; his second thought was he might be hiding out in the garage, but it wasn’t like he could just prance in without someone thinking he was trying to cheat. In the end he decided upon walking aimlessly through the paddock hoping he would either find Lando or someone who knew where he was. Surprisingly his plan worked; he had been wandering around being careful to avoid anyone who looked like they wanted to talk to him, when he heard a sniffling coming from one of the alleys between the motorhomes. When he looked down the corridor he had just passed he saw Lando’s small frame hunched over himself. Unsure of what to do, Max took a few steps towards him when Lando suddenly looked up. His eyes were red and watery, and now that he was no longer pressing his face into his knees Max could tell that the knees of his fireproofs were wet from tears.

“Hey.” Lando croaked out “fancy seeing you here.”

Max took a few steps to close the gap between him and knelt down in front of the other driver. 

“You ok?” Max knew that probably wasn’t the right thing to say, but he had never been good with words, especially when it came to dealing with emotions, so he figured it would have to do. 

“I’m fine.” 

“Really? Because the tears would suggest otherwise.”

“It’s been a long day.” Lando sighed with a weak smile, “Just trying to get some time to myself.”

‘Shit’ Max inwardly cursed. All he had been trying to do was be helpful, but he’d even managed to screw that up. 

“Ah, ok.” As he slowly got up and started to walk away he felt a tug on the arm of his fireproofs. 

When he turned around Lando was looking up at him with sad puppy dog eyes, “You can stay if you want…”

Relief surged through Max, maybe he hadn’t screwed up so badly after all. As sat down next to Lando, he felt a slight weight rest upon his shoulder, and he couldn’t help but smile when he saw the younger boy pressing against his side. They sat in silence for what seemed like eons, content in the other’s presence. At some point Lando started softly crying again, and Max didn’t even think of objecting when Lando used one of the sleeves of Max’s fireproofs to wipe up the tears. During one particular crying episode Max reached for Lando’s hand and gently rubbed circles in the middle of his palm. In all honesty he had no idea what he was doing, but he remembered seeing someone do it in a romcom Daniel had forced him to watch.

Eventually Max moved to stand up; while Singapore never really felt cold when they were there it was definitely getting colder, and the time on Max’s watch indicated that he needed to get back to the hotel before someone got worried. Lando groaned but stood up as well, and together they made their way back toward the main section of the paddock. As they got closer to the busy section of the paddock Max dropped Lando’s hand, and his heart couldn’t help but break when Lando’s slight smile vanished. 

Panicking Max stammered,“I don’t want someone to see and tell my father...not before we’ve talked about whatever this” he gestured between them “is.”

“Ok” Lando responded with a shy smile. 

“I should probably go check in with my team again, but if you want I can text you my room number.”

The smile that immediately lit up Lando’s face, made his stomach do summersaults. 

“Ya, that sounds nice.”

They walked their separate ways towards their respective teams, but each of them had a small smile ghosting their lips for the rest of the night. Later at the hotel when Max was falling asleep with Lando in his arms he thought back to when he’d wished reality was as nice as his daydreams. He couldn’t help but think that this moment was nicer than a thousand of the fantasies his mind could produce.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again (regretfully) not really edited, and I apologize if the characters seem ooc (it's one of the things I struggle with). I will probably end up rewriting the end, but I wanted to get this up before the race tomorrow, so here it is.

**Author's Note:**

> This really isn't beta'd and I pretty sure it's very ooc, but it has been sitting unposted for a couple weeks, and I figured if I didn't post it (pretty much) unedited it would just sit there forever, so here we are.
> 
> Also the formatting on this site confuses me to no end, so if anyone knows how to indent paragraphs PLEASE let me know.
> 
> Edit: Thank you to everyone who corrected me on the "you're fucking whole" line. I (clearly) don't speech Dutch, although I wish I did, and am super grateful that people pointed it out so that I could correct it. I'm also pretty unsure of whether Lando was singing the actual line or what I misheard it as, but for the purpose of storytelling I've decided on the later. :D


End file.
